I asked Hubby to select the cookbook for this week’s recipe and review, and of course he set me a challenge! The Slow Cooker Cookbook came into my possession by accident, mistakenly delivered as part of an order from Lakeland a few years ago; when I let them know, they said they didn’t want it back. So this rather smart-looking large format hardback made its home on my ‘tall cookbooks’ shelf and has been there, more or less ignored, ever since.

The main reason for this, you may have guessed, is that I don’t in fact own a slow cooker. I’ve had my eyes on one for a number of years, but I simply don’t have the storage space to put one away when not in use, or the counter space to leave it out all the time.

I’m currently coveting a Wonderbag, which if it works as well as they say it does, has most of the properties of a slow cooker without any power use – magic or what? But we’re on quite a tight budget just now, so purchases of new shiny things – even lovely energy saving ones! – are going to have to wait a while.

I knew we had a pack of lovely braising steaks in the freezer, so the recipe more or less chose itself. The rest of the ingredients are store cupboard and pantry standards – though there are rather a lot of them – which makes this a great economical recipe. I have made a few small modifications to suit the ingredients and quantities I had available. It would happily serve four – for the two of us it made two meals, and tasted just as good reheated on the second day.

To make this lovely braised beef dish, you will need about six hours, a large stock-pot, a frying pan, and –

• Four small or two large pieces of braising steak – about 700g / 1.5lb in all
• Plain flour
• Oil for shallow-frying (I used rapeseed oil)
• Four medium onions. I used two large spindle-shaped shallots, one yellow and one red onion, because that’s what I had. The recipe calls for twelve small round shallots – but I really can’t see what difference it makes.
• Two garlic cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 3 tsp dark muscovado sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 3 tbsp creamed horseradish
• 700ml of beef stock (I used a mixture of beef stock cubes, and vegetable bouillon powder)
• Red wine, if available. Substitute this up to half of stock.
• Two large carrots. The recipe calls for baby carrots. I don’t like baby vegetables much (unless they’re thinnings from the veggie garden!) and even if I did, they tend not to be available in our local village co-op.
• 2 bay leaves.
• Dried thyme (my addition)
• Salt and pepper.

On a plate, season a couple of tablespoons of plain flour with salt and pepper. Cut the braising steak into large pieces (probably about 3 x 3 inches or thereabouts) and dredge in the seasoned flour. In the frying pan, heat a little oil, and then fry the pieces of floured beef quickly, just for a minute or two until they start to brown. Only do a few pieces at once, so you don’t crowd the pan, and once they’re done, transfer them to the bottom of your stock pot.

Now slice your onions into quarters though the root, so as to keep the layers together, and peel off the skin. Fry these in a little oil until they’re just starting to go golden, then add the garlic (minced, crushed or chopped very finely), the ground ginger and curry powder, and fry on for a minute or two so the flavours combine and the garlic just softens. Once you’re happy with it, add the onion mixture to the stock pot on top of the beef.

Make up your stock mixture with boiling water, or if you’re using real beef stock, which obviously would be better, heat it to nearly boiling on the stove. Add the liquid to the stock pot, followed by the sugar, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish, bay leaves, and a big pinch of dried thyme. Peel the carrots and slice them into ‘baby carrot’ pieces – I halved each carrot and then sliced these pieces into quarters lengthways – and add these, along with a big pinch of black pepper. I wouldn’t add any salt at this stage, especially if you’ve used stock cubes or powders – you can always adjust the seasoning at the end of cooking if you find it lacking.

Mix well to combine everything, and put the stock-pot on the hob to bring it to a simmer. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180C. Once the pot is boiling, fit the lid and put the stock pot in the oven. After the first hour, turn the oven down to 120 C and allow it to cook on for another four hours. It’s not a bad idea to take it out every hour or so and give it a gentle stir, as it will tend to form a skin on the surface as this layer dries out a little.

I served this lovely rich braised beef dish with roast potatoes and parsnips – I’m lucky to have two ovens, but if you only have the one then you can take the pot out of the oven and keep it just ticking over on the hob while you use the oven for your roast vegetables. In fact, you could do the whole thing on the hob, but it will require a fair bit more attention since it’s far more likely to catch and burn on the base of the pan.

I have to admit to having had my doubts about this recipe – the ground ginger and curry powder particularly I would never have thought to add to a dish of this sort. Through the long cooking process, they meld down into a deep complex earthy spicy character and lose their distinctive individual flavours. There’s a good but gentle heat to the finished dish, mostly from the horseradish. The braised beef is fork tender – the pieces break down further during cooking, yielding nice bite-sized pieces – and the carrots somehow avoid becoming mushy, developing instead a profound sweetness.

I love this recipe, and will definitely be making it again. It’s a fabulous winter warmer, but would dress up (and scale up) very nicely for entertaining. It re-heats extremely well, so you could make it the day before, but given the long cooking process all the work for dinner is done just after lunchtime anyway, leaving plenty of time to sort out all the trimmings! For lunch today, we enjoyed the leftovers it with some lovely toasted buttered home-made bread, which was also great.

**
The Slow Cooker Cookbook, by Catherine Atkinson
Lorenz Books, 2008 (2nd edition)
ISBN 978-0-7548-1486-3
Hardcover, 256 pages, full colour. RRP £16.99.

[Full disclosure: This is my book (though it did come to me free of charge in slightly unusual circumstances!). I have received no payment or sponsorship for this post. I do not have an amazon affiliate account and do not profit from any links provided.]

I must admit to having been a bit dismissive of this book – due to the lack of a slow cooker, yes, but also because these sorts of themed-collection cookbooks have a tendency to be a bit disappointing, and often feel cobbled-together to fill a gap in someone’s publication list, or as promotional items for some kitchen gadget or other.

Well, if the rest of the recipes in this book are anything like as good as this one, I’ve been neglecting a bit of a gem! Flicking through, I think it’s quite possible that they might be, though as the frontispiece credits 18 people in addition to the author for recipes, I can’t exclude a degree of variability! The book features a huge variety of different dishes – 220 in all, from the very traditional to the really quite unusual, and from a wide range of cuisines, though French influences seem predominant. There are the obvious braised and casserole dishes, like this one, but also far more unexpected things – I had no idea, for instance, that you might be able to make cakes and brownies in a slow cooker, or that they could be used as a ‘bain marie’ for cooking patés and terrines. Students with limited cooking facilities – take note!

I think there are recipes here which could help break regular slow cooker devotees out of a culinary rut, and plenty of ideas which are generally adaptable to slow one-pot cooking, with or without a slow cooker.

As for me, in due course – will I be buying a slow cooker, on the strength of this, or sticking with my instincts and trying that Wonderbag instead? I’m still not sure… watch this space!

‘Cooking the Books’ is my self-imposed blog challenge for 2014 – I’ll be trying to cook a new recipe from one of my (rather extensive!) collection of cookbooks once a week, write it up and review it. Wish me luck!

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